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The constitutional revisions approved in the July 1, 2011 referendum can significantly advance Moroccans' rights, but only if authorities use these new constitutional principles to reform repressive laws and practices, Human Rights Watch said today.
Among the practices that need to be brought into line with the constitution is the police response to peaceful protest, Human Rights said. Since Moroccans began demonstrating in the streets on February 20 to demand major political reforms, inspired by the protest movements sweeping the Arab world, the police have responded on several occasions with extreme brutality. They have beaten peaceful protesters to the point where scores required medical care such as stitches and treatment of broken bones. At least one died in the hospital after being beaten, although the cause of death remains unclear.
"The real test of the Moroccan government's commitment to human rights is in whether it respects its citizens' rights in practice," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "It's not enough to adopt a constitution that affirms, 'No one may harm the physical or moral integrity of another in any circumstance' and then allow the police to club peaceful demonstrators."
The constitutional reforms include several provisions that reinforce citizens' rights, including gender equality, freedom of expression "in all its forms," freedom of association, assembly and peaceful protest, the right to a fair trial, and the criminalization of torture, arbitrary detention, and forced disappearance. The constitution precludes press censorship. It requires the authorities to tell anyone they detain "immediately" of the reasons and of their rights. The amendments also grant powers to the prime minister that previously were exclusively the king's.
Among the many Moroccan laws that need to be brought into line with the new constitution's sweeping affirmation of these principles are provisions of the press code and penal code that provide prison terms for expression, Human Rights Watch said. These include speech or writing that "defames" public officials or state institutions under articles 45 and 46 of the press code or that "brings harm to" Islam, the monarchy, or Morocco's sovereignty claim over Western Sahara, under article 41.
The organizers of most of the demonstrations in recent months are from the February 20 Movement for Change, a loosely knit and mostly youth-based group inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The group's slogans focus on freedom and democracy, and an end to corruption and repression. At times they have made more specific calls, such as to vastly curtail the king's powers and prerogatives and to free political prisoners. The powerful Islamist movement Justice and Spirituality, the far-left small party the Democratic Path, and the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, among others, have endorsed the February 20 Movement's goals.
On several occasions, including during much of June, authorities did not interfere with demonstrations the movement had organized in major cities. But on several other occasions since February, security forces in Rabat, Casablanca, and elsewhere assaulted demonstrators.
Human Rights Watch interviewed protesters in Rabat, Casablanca, and Kenitra who were beaten. They said that security forces assaulted protesters as they were gathering, with no warning, charging them with batons and striking them on their bodies and, in some cases, their heads. In other instances, as protesters were dispersing, security forces pursued protesters down side streets to continue beating them.
The beatings they described would appear designed to mete out summary punishment. Their numerous and consistent accounts contradict official claims that the security forces used only the force necessary to disperse "unauthorized" gatherings, or to disperse people who blocked traffic or disobeyed orders.
There is no obvious explanation for the government's vacillation between allowing peaceful demonstrations on some days and, on other days, violently repressing peaceful demonstrations that were organized under the same slogans, Human Rights Watch said.
The independent Moroccan Association for Human Rights says that it has documented over 100 cases of injuries to protesters inflicted by the security forces between February and the end of May. To the best of Human Rights Watch's knowledge, no member of the security forces has been prosecuted for using violence unjustifiably against protesters.
Some of the harshest police violence occurred at peaceful protests on May 15, 22, 28, and 29. Human Rights Watch interviewed numerous people who tried to take part in those demonstrations and in earlier ones where police beat protesters.
On May 15 in Temara, as protesters tried to hold a picnic outside a facility thought to be a secret prison, police intercepted arriving demonstrators, blocked them, and beat many of them, pursuing them as they fled to continue beating them.
On May 22 in Rabat and Casablanca, police in large numbers were waiting for demonstrators and began to beat them, and in some cases detain and beat them, as soon as they arrived.
On May 28 and 29, protesters in Rabat, Casablanca, and Kenitra were beaten severely and in some cases detained.
Moroccan law requires organizers of an outdoor demonstration to notify authorities in advance, and authorities may forbid the demonstration in writing if they deem it likely to "disturb the public order," under article 13 of the law on public gatherings.
Some of the February 20 Movement protest organizers said that they had not been notifying authorities because they believed the government would forbid their protests under any circumstances. A few said that even though they had not notified the authorities, the authorities served them with written notifications that the protests they were planning would be unauthorized.
For example, Karim Tazy, a 52-year-old Casablanca businessman who supports the protests, received one such notice on May 26, signed by the director of general affairs, Najib Grani, under the order of the Wali (governor) of Casablanca, warning him that a demonstration planned for May 29 was not authorized.
Even when dispersing demonstrations that authorities deem unauthorized or threatening to the public order, international standards allow law enforcement agents to use force only as a last resort. According to the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, in the dispersal of assemblies that are "unlawful but non-violent, law enforcement officials shall avoid the use of force or, where that is not practicable, shall restrict such force to the minimum extent necessary" to disperse the protest.
Article 19 of Morocco's law on public gatherings requires law enforcement agents to issue three oral warnings to disperse via megaphones before they scatter protesters forcibly. The beatings with batons of peaceful protesters, with no warning, and continuing long after protests have been dispersed, violate these standards.
Lawyers representing protesters told Human Rights Watch that a number of protesters have filed formal complaints to the courts about the beatings. Prosecutors have in some cases charged protesters with participating in an "unauthorized" gathering or other charges such as disobeying orders of a public agent, constitution of a "criminal gang," and destruction of private property. But authorities have not, to Human Rights Watch's knowledge, announced any investigations or prosecutions of those responsible for the brutal violence against the protesters, except for the investigation into the death of a protester, Kamal Ammari, in Safi (see below).
"Moroccans voted for a constitution that contains bold language in favor of human rights," Whitson said. "Nothing can show more quickly that their 'yes' vote means reforms in practice than a new respect by authorities for the right to demonstrate and sanctions against officers who beat protesters without cause."
May 15, Temara
The February 20 Movement tried to organize a picnic outside the headquarters of the General Direction of the Surveillance of the Territory (Direction generale de la Surveillance du territoire, or DGST), which is widely suspected of housing a secret interrogation facility, despite government denials. The purpose, the organizers said, was to support political reform and the release of political prisoners via an afternoon of plays, poetry, and music.
The event never took place because the security forces intercepted the would-be participants as they gathered in front of the nearby Aswak Essalam supermarket. In some cases, security forces stopped protesters as they drove up to the supermarket, asked for their IDs and searched their bags, and then ordered them to leave.
Other protesters who reached the supermarket said that the security forces detained them or beat them to keep them from going further. Mohammed Allal el-Fajeri, a 34-year-old journalist from the city of Sale, said that when he got to the supermarket, security forces asked him and a friend for their IDs, took photos of them, and detained them:
The police were clubbing people everywhere, with no warning.... They put me in a big police vehicle and called me gay, a traitor, and a criminal. Then they took me to the police station in Temara. There they took our cellphones and got us to give them our phones' PIN codes by warning us that they could use "other means" to get us to comply. They went into our phones' address books, copied phone numbers and deleted our pictures ... They asked us questions about our work, families, and political affiliations. They kept me at the police station asking questions during four-and-a-half hours, when I had been at the protest for only 15 minutes ... Afterward they let me go."
A protest leader, Oussama el-Khlifi, a 23-year-old from Rabat who has a degree in information sciences but is unemployed, told Human Rights Watch he and a few other friends made it to the intended site of the demonstration, where 100 or so people had managed to gather. But as soon as they chanted their first slogan, he said, the police moved in to disperse them.
"We ran away but the police followed us for about 800 meters," el-Khlifi said. "I was in a group of about 11 protesters, pursued by police in their cars." El-Khlifi said that he ended up in a cul-de-sac. "I tried to hide in a store but the police found me. They forced me to say, 'Long live the king' and they hit me on my shoulder. When I didn't fall, they clubbed me on the head and I lost consciousness. When I regained consciousness, I found myself at the hospital, with a broken nose and an injured shoulder."
When Human Rights Watch interviewed el-Khlifi on June 8, injuries on his nose and elsewhere on his face were still visible. Selma Maarouf, a 22-year-old university student, also said security forces pursued and beat her after dispersing the protest.
"I tried to hide in a garage, but they followed me and kicked and beat me," Maarouf said. "I had bruises, I couldn't breathe or walk, and lost consciousness. One senior officer called me 'a bitch' as he struck me." Maarouf said that security forces beat her and other women in the protests between their legs with clubs.
Ashraf Taib Gouijjan, an 18-year-old high school student who also tried to reach the protest, said eight police in civilian clothes surrounded him outside the supermarket and beat him. They then left him, but when he tried to leave he was caught by another officer, who beat him. Gouijjan told Human Rights Watch:
He got me by the hair and pushed me down and started beating me with a club. When I was on the ground, holding my bag, he beat me until I let my bag go. He hit me in the jaw and legs. My jaw was not broken but for about a week it was painful to eat.
Nizar Bennamate, a 25-year-old journalism student, said that when he tried to join the demonstration, security forces took him to the back of a windowless police van and beat him and eight or nine others inside with clubs and a helmet.
"They didn't beat me on the head but everywhere else," Bennamate said. "They forced me to say, 'Long live the king' then slapped my face ... They took us to the police station. They asked me questions and held me for about 30 minutes."
Khalid Guemouri, an Islamist protester who says that he had once been detained in Temara, said that when he tried to reach the supermarket, intelligence agents stopped him.
"They asked for our IDs and names, and took photos of us," Guemouri said. "They told us to leave or it would be dangerous. I could see other security forces beating people."
Guemouri said he received calls that day from relatives of Islamist detainees who had tried to reach Temara from other cities but had been intercepted at bus stations by police officers who told them to return home. Guemouri headed to the Rabat bus station to meet relatives of prisoners who had been able to reach Rabat, and went with them to join another demonstration that was forming in front of the Parliament building in the heart of the city. Guemouri said,
It was a sit-in by about 150 people, but when activists from the February 20 movement arrived and started chanting their slogans, the security forces moved in to beat them and violently disperse the sit-in. It lasted only three minutes... the security forces attacked us without prior warning. We were shouting slogans against corruption and tyranny, and for democracy and freedom. They beat me on the back first with clubs, and then on the head. I started to bleed from the head. As the police charged us, we kept chanting slogans like "Peaceful!" The police retreated for a while and then attacked again.
Human Rights Watch observed Guemouri's head injury on June 9 as well as a video of him in the demonstration, bleeding from the head.
Commenting to the press on the events at Temara that day, Communication Minister Khalid Naciri said that the demonstrators had not sought advance permission and that, when notified that they were acting outside the law, they opted for defiance.
May 22, Casablanca and Rabat
Hamza Mahfoudh, a 26-year old philosophy and journalism student who developed many of the slogans for the February 20 Movement, said that he tried to join a demonstration on May 22 in the Sbata neighborhood of Casablanca. But when he arrived he found security forces beating protesters, whom they outnumbered, to disperse them. Mahfoudh told Human Rights Watch:
We tried to get people to come from smaller streets into larger ones so that our numbers would be bigger .... We got about 500 people together in a side street, but when we tried to join others the security forces attacked us... I hid in a house [but when I left, the security forces] beat me on the hand and dislocated my finger. People were just chanting, "Peaceful, peaceful until the realization of freedom." Hundreds were hurt that day.
In Rabat the same day, Khalid Guemouri said that he tried to join a February 20 movement demonstration in the Akkari neighborhood at 4 p.m. But the security forces got there first.
"Everyone who arrived was beaten, so we never gathered," Guemouri said. He added that a group of demonstrators decided to regroup at Bab el-Had, closer to downtown, but when he got there, "The police went crazy and started beating anyone on the sidewalks. I saw a policeman on a bike driving into the crowd ... people tried to stop him but he threatened one guy with a gun."
Guemouri said that four security agents caught him and took him to a vehicle, where they beat him and seven others. They then took him to a police station.
"There were 17 of us at the police station, all from the February 20 movement. I was the only Islamist," Guemouri said. "They photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned us."
Guemouri said the police then took six of the group to cells underground.
"They didn't let us contact our families or lawyers.... I was not told the reason for my detention," Guemori said." He said after 48 hours the police took them before the general prosecutor on charges of disturbing traffic and participating in an "unauthorized" gathering. "After an hour, the prosecutor said he had received orders to release us."
In a May 22 dispatch, the official Maghreb Arab Presse agency stated, "These marches, more and more frequent, interfere with traffic in the cities, not to mention the harm they are causing to commercial activity. As a result, the forces of order were obliged to intervene to restore respect for the law by dispersing these marches."
May 28, Rabat; May 29, Casablanca; and May 28 and 29, Kenitra
On May 28, security forces assaulted protesters in Rabat and Kenitra, and on May 29 in Casablanca and Kenitra.
Hamza Mahfoudh, said that when he tried to join the May 29 demonstration in the Sbata neighborhood of Casablanca, police immediately targeted him and beat him so hard on the face and legs that when the police finally left, he lost consciousness when he tried to walk. Mahfoudh said:
Days after what happened I still can't feel one side of my face, and when I try to eat, it feels like an electric shock ... I had a fracture on the back of my shoulder.... Almost every day now I have to go to the hospital [for diagnostic tests] because I still pass out from time to time.
Mohammed Allal el-Fajeri, 34, one of the founders of the February 20 movement and a journalist working for www.marayapress.net, said that on May 28, the movement had also planned a rally for 5 p.m. in Sale, the large city next to Rabat where he lives. Earlier that day, authorities brought to his home a written notice saying that the rally was forbidden, even though the movement had not requested permission. El-Fajeri went to the site of the intended rally, but he said that after two minutes, plainclothes police detained him and another demonstrator and put them in a police car:
They asked what we were doing there when the march had been banned. We said we had never requested permission ... They took us to the station ... and interrogated us. They took our IDs and asked questions about our positions regarding the king ... and what we meant by chants like "Mahkzen [a Moroccan term connoting the state and public administration], get out!" or our demand to amend article 19 of the constitution [the article of the 1996 constitution, since amended, that designates the king as the "Commander of the Faithful" and the "supreme representative of the nation"]. They kept saying that if I didn't answer they would "change my behavior."
Released later that day, el-Fajeri told Human Rights Watch on June 8 that he continued to receive anonymous warnings that he will not find a job unless he tells other activists to stop protesting.
On May 29, security forces in the town of Safi, 208 kilometers southwest of Casablanca, beat Kamal Ammari, a 30-year old protester who belonged to the Islamist Justice and Spirituality association, said Mohamed Aghnaj, a Casablanca-based lawyer who also belongs to Justice and Spirituality and who represents Ammari's family. Ammari suffered a broken knee and possibly broken ribs, Aghnaj said. Ammari went home that night, but went to a hospital a couple of days later because he was not feeling well. He died in the hospital on June 2.
The office of the prosecutor announced that the team of forensic doctors concluded that Ammari died from a "extensive pneumonopathy with cerebral anoxia" that had "aggravated the effects of a simple blow to the torso that would normally have been benign but that led to death in the absence of prompt and adequate treatment." The prosecutor's office said it had "ordered the police to conduct a comprehensive and thorough inquiry to determine the circumstances of the death."
Ammari's family filed a complaint with the general prosecutor and asked for the release of the full autopsy report on Ammari's death. The report had not been released as of July 4, Aghnaj said.
Five Islamist protesters - Said el-Azhari, 39; el-Moustafa el-Amghari, 40; Boughaba Roudane, 42; Nabil el-Amghari, 22; and Mohammed Moujane, 50 - in the city of Kenitra, 40 kilometers northeast of Rabat, told Human Rights Watch that the security forces beat them during protests organized by the February 20 movement on May 28 and 29. Roudane said that on May 28 he was participating in a protest in Kenitra when police began beating the protesters with wooden clubs.
"I tried to protect an old man, and they hit me on the arm and broke it, Roudane said." When Human Rights Watch interviewed Roudane on June 8, his arm was in a sling.
El-Amghari said that police detained him and four other demonstrators at another protest in Kenitra on May 29, and took them into the woods, handcuffed, placed them face down on the ground, and beat them on the backs and legs with wooden clubs. They later uncuffed them and left them in the woods to walk back on their own.
February and March Attacks
Human Rights Watch received similar reports of violence in Rabat on February 21 and 23, and in Casablanca on March 13, as well as in other cities on the same dates.
On February 21, the day after the authorities had allowed protesters in cities across the country to hold the first nationwide demonstrations for political change, police in Rabat clubbed demonstrators who had gathered in Bab el-Had square. Khadija Ryadi, the president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, was among those who went to the hospital for treatment after being beaten.
On February 23, police in Rabat forcibly dispersed a small demonstration called by the Moroccan Democratic Network for Support of the People in front of the Libyan Cultural Center. The police beat would-be participants, including Abdelkhaleq Benzekri, Abdelillah Benabdeslam, Montassir Idrissi, and Taoufik Moussa'if. Moussa'if, a human rights lawyer who is active in the judicial reform association Adala, told Human Rights Watch that as protesters arrived, a senior officer ordered them to disperse. When they refused, the officer ordered the use of force and the police beat him on the head, shoulders, and feet. Benabdeslam, of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, told Human Rights Watch that baton-wielding police clubbed the protesters hard on various parts of their bodies.
On March 13, Oussama el-Khlifi, a leader of the February 20 Movement said he and a friend tried to reach the site of a demonstration in Casablanca, but the police immediately detained them and beat them in a police car with batons.
"They just kept calling us traitors and atheists.... They took us to the police station ... where we were beaten and interrogated.... We were released at the end because other protesters, including political figures, held a sit-in [demanding our release]," el-Khlifi said.
Hamza Mahfoudh was also at the Casablanca demonstration on March 13, and says police beat him too.
"I found someone on the ground whose leg appeared to be broken ... I tried to get him to an ambulance, but police surrounded me and started to beat me. They took the expensive camera I had with me and smashed it," Mahfoudh said.
El-Khlifi and Mahfoudh both said that more than 100 demonstrators were detained in Casablanca that day.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
"By blocking access to IVF and trying to control how families grow, MAGA Republicans in the Senate are proving just how far they're willing to go to impose Trump's out-of-touch, authoritarian vision."
In another effort to call out Republicans in Congress for pushing deadly policies that restrict reproductive freedom, Senate Democrats on Tuesday held a vote to open debate on legislation that is intended "to protect and expand nationwide access to fertility treatment, including in vitro fertilization."
The tally was 51-44, short of the 60 votes needed to start debate on the Right to IVF Act (S. 4555). Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted with every Democrat and Independent present to advance the bill, while Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and JD Vance (R-Ohio) did not participate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) previously held a vote on the legislation in July—part of a broader strategy in the lead-up to the November election that has also featured votes on the Right to Contraception Act and the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act. In all cases, Republican senators have blocked the bills from advancing to final votes.
In addition to deciding the makeup of Congress, U.S. voters are set to choose whether former Republican President Donald Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris returns to the White House. Throughout the contest, Harris has campaigned on expanding reproductive freedom at the federal level and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has shared how his family was made possible through fertility treatments.
Harris said on social media after Tuesday's vote that Senate Republicans "made clear—again—that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child."
Meanwhile, Trump has both bragged about his role in reversing Roe v. Wade, which enabled a fresh wave of state-level abortion bans, but also attempted to distance himself from the most extreme laws and proposals. He also chose Vance as his running mate, heightening fears of what their election would mean for reproductive rights nationwide.
"By all accounts, a vote to protect something as basic and popular as IVF shouldn't be necessary. But sadly it is very necessary, thanks to attacks against reproductive care by Donald Trump and his Project 2025," Schumer said Tuesday, referring to the Heritage Foundation-led initiative designed for the next Republican president that Trump has tried to disavow.
"From the moment Donald Trump's MAGA Supreme Court reversed Roe, the hard-right made clear they would keep going. As we saw earlier this year in Alabama, IVF has become one of the hard-right's next targets," Schumer continued, recalling the state Supreme Court's February decision recognizing frozen embryos as children.
After the vote, the Democratic leader declared that "Senate Republicans just blocked the bill to protect IVF—AGAIN. They keep trying to tell everyone who will listen that they support IVF. But their actions speak louder."
Like Schumer and other critics, Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, pointed to Project 2025 on Thursday.
"Donald Trump can try to walk away from Project 2025, but his fingerprints are all over it. At least 140 former Trump administration and campaign officials helped craft this far-right agenda," she said in a statement. "Trump's public disavowal is nothing more than an attempt to deceive voters while his allies in Congress push the very policies he's pretending to distance himself from."
"Project 2025 isn't a distant, abstract threat—it's a real, extremist agenda that MAGA Republicans are eager to implement. By blocking access to IVF and trying to control how families grow, MAGA Republicans in the Senate are proving just how far they're willing to go to impose Trump's out-of-touch, authoritarian vision," Harvey added. "As more Americans learn about the policies in Project 2025, the stakes at the ballot box this November will become even clearer."
Democratic National Committee spokesperson Aida Ross targeted the Republican vice presidential candidate, saying that "JD Vance celebrated when Donald Trump 'proudly' overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for threats to IVF access for Americans who want to start or grow their family. Today, Vance couldn't be bothered to show up to vote on protecting IVF access, after voting against the same protections in June."
"Vance is showing us who he is and we should believe him," Ross added. "The American people will remember that Vance didn't show up for them, and they'll make that clear when they reject the Trump-Vance ticket's anti-choice Project 2025 agenda in November."
American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super political action committee, said the vote shows Republicans "are full of sh*t on protecting IVF," specifically calling out Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who are seeking reelection this November and have previously claimed to support access to fertility treatments.
"Sens. Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Deb Fischer's hypocrisy on IVF underscores the Republican Party's refusal to support and protect reproductive rights," said American Bridge Senate communications director Nico Delgado. "Voters already know the GOP's damaging stance on abortion—and each vote against protecting IVF only deepens their credibility crisis."
Indivisible's co-founder and co-executive Director Leah Greenberg similarly said in a statement that "Trump and the GOP have been scrambling to hide their unpopular, outdated views on reproductive rights, but they're not fooling anybody."
Greenberg continued:
When Republicans send mixed messages on TV and online, look at their voting records. They've consistently voted against protecting personal freedoms—from access to abortion and contraceptives to IVF. For decades, they've chipped away at reproductive rights, and it's only gotten worse since Trump entered politics.
"As attacks on reproductive rights intensify, including MAGA efforts against contraception, we can't let our guard down. Indivisible proudly supports Sen. Schumer and Democrats for not only standing up for these fundamental rights, but continuously calling out their Republican colleagues' blatant lies.
Millions rely on contraception and IVF to build their families and lives, including Gov. Walz who has shared his family's struggles with fertility. These rights are fundamental and widely supported, and Republicans are straight-up trying to take them away. It is not only weird—it's dangerous.
"We commend Senate Democrats for taking decisive and strategic action by bringing this bill for a vote," she added. "Between now and November, we'll make sure every single voter sees through Republican bullshit and knows they voted against IVF protections today."
At the hearing, advocate Maya Berry said she "experienced the very issue that we're attempting to deal with today."
After Republican lawmakers and some activists objected to Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry's inclusion in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the rise in hate crimes in the country, GOP Sen. John Kennedy unleashed what one critic said was anti-Muslim "hate speech" during his questioning.
"You support Hamas, don't you?" asked the Louisiana senator at the hearing titled "A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America." Kennedy also conflated Hamas with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the agency tasked with providing public services and aid to Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
Berry replied that it was "exceptionally disappointing that you're looking at an Arab American witness before you and saying, 'You support Hamas.'"
She then said clearly, "I do not support Hamas," but was cut off by Kennedy as he raised his voice to accuse her of being unable to disavow the group, also accusing her of supporting Hezbollah and Iran.
"You should hide your head in a bag," said Kennedy, drawing gasps from the audience.
The "horrific remark" was "a blatant example of anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim rhetoric," said the Muslim voter mobilization group Emgage Action.
The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee denounced Kennedy's "horrible" comment, instead amplifying Berry's response, in which she said that while taking part in a hearing on hate speech and hate crimes, she "experienced the very issue that we're attempting to deal with today."
"This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we're in now," said Berry.
Berry also faced condemnation from Kennedy over her opposition to the United States' decision to suspend funding for UNRWA—a move that resulted from unverified Israeli claims that agency employees had worked with Hamas, and which has been denounced by international rights groups and experts due to its impact on people who rely on the agency in Gaza.
"Maya Berry went before the committee to discuss hate crimes. Both Ms. Berry and the topic should have been treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve," said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "Instead, Sen. Kennedy and others chose to be an example of the bigotry Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims have faced in recent months and years."
Republicans on the committee had decried Democrats for inviting witnesses whose testimony delved into issues aside from antisemitism—which was conflated with anti-Zionism in a bill passed by the House earlier this year and in one introduced in the Senate.
Along with Berry, a leading advocate against anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in the U.S., the Democrats invited Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, who has denounced right-wing groups for "weaponizing" claims of antisemitism against people who speak out against the Israeli government.
In her testimony, Berry spoke about the rise in hate crimes against Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as against Jewish people, Black people, Asian Americans, and other groups.
After Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack last October, CAIR reported a 56% rise in hate crimes against Palestinians and Muslims in the United States, with 8,061 attacks reported in 2023. From January-June 2024, the grou documented 4,951 complaints, a 69% increase over the same period in 2023.
Arif Rafiq, a strategist and author, said that there would likely be "no censure of Sen. Kennedy" following his comments in the hearing.
"Bigotry toward Arabs and Muslims, even in this most brazen form," said Rafiq, "is acceptable in American politics."
"These children deserve better," said one mother. "They deserve to be children, not to live in constant fear of raids and shootings."
An average of five children per day have been killed or wounded by Israeli occupation forces and settler-colonists in the West Bank of Palestine, according to a report published Tuesday by Save the Children, which sounded the alarm on what it called a "significant escalation of violence in the past six weeks."
According to the charity, Israeli forces have killed 158 Palestinian children in the West Bank between October 7 and August 14. At least 1,400 other children have been injured. The majority of those killed—115 children—were shot, while others have been killed by Israeli aerial bombing and drone strikes.
"We must not allow violence against children to become normalized or accepted as inevitable."
Child casualties have increased significantly since Israel launched a major offensive in the northern West Bank on August 28.
One 12-year-old girl from the Tulkarem refugee camp described what it was like to experience an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid.
"I felt a lot of fear because of the airstrikes and shootings," she said. "By the third day, I was even more scared because the Israeli forces raided our home. They barged in, screaming, and my mum tried to speak to them, but they swarmed the house and searched every room. We were so afraid of them."
"There is no safety for us," she added. "At any moment they might come back and at any moment they go—we don't know."
The girl's mother told Save the Children that IDF troops "gathered at night, began the raid, and stayed a long time here and raided our home, terrorizing the kids, separating them, frightening them."
"They blew up the door," she continued. "My little girl couldn't control herself and wet herself. [She] was standing, shaking in the corner. They pointed their guns at me."
"The children are constantly afraid, deprived of the simplest things," she added. "Their mental health is deteriorating. These children deserve better. They deserve to be children, not to live in constant fear of raids and shootings."
Save the Children said that "since last October there has been an increase in the arbitrary arrest, detention, and abuse of children in the Israeli military detention system, more forced displacement of families, demolition of homes, and a sharp rise in violent attacks by Israeli settlers."
Jeremy Stoner, the charity's Middle East regional director, stressed that "these actions are not isolated incidents; they are part of a trend of increasing Israeli military operations and use of force that are systematically eroding the safety, security, and fundamental rights of Palestinian children, who are paying the highest price in this escalating violence."
"Every day, children are killed, injured, or left severely distressed, and their families are left grieving unimaginable losses," he continued. "This environment deprives children of essential services and even the basic security of their homes, ripping away their sense of safety when they need it most."
"We must not allow violence against children to become normalized or accepted as inevitable," Stoner added. "We need urgent and decisive action to protect children across the West Bank and to stop this becoming their increasing reality."
Israel's offensive began just weeks after the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—where Israel is also on trial for genocide in Gaza—declared the country's 57-year occupation of the West Bank an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately. Instead, Israel launched the largest campaign in the territory in decades.
According to the most recent United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs situation report, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 546 Palestinians and injured at least 5,669 others in the West Bank since October 7. Since January 2023, 772 West Bank Palestinians have been killed and more than 14,600 were wounded. Over that same period, Palestinians have killed 41 Israelis including eight children and wounded 278 others.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 146,000 Palestinians since October 7, when the IDF began a "complete siege" and relentless bombardment, followed by a ground invasion, that displaced almost all of the embattled enclave's 2.3 million people while starving and sickening many others.